Are there any TVs nowadays that don't advertise to you? I bought a Hisense about 6 years ago because it supposedly didn't advertise. 2 years into getting the TV it advertises now. Any suggestions for a TV that just lets me watch?
this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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Every time somebody brings this up, there's the same obvious answer. The only real option is to have an external streaming device and to disable or completely ignore the built-in operating system.
I got a Philips TV and just never connected it to the internet. Only ad I see is the ugly Netflix button on my remote, rest is handled by OSMC.
I think most TVs can do this. I've even discovered that Samsung that's notorious for forcing you to go through a network setup wizard can be bypassed just by pressing the right arrow button instead of selecting a WiFi. At least all the Samsung TVs from my old workplace had this bypass.
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I thought it's always been like this? No?
Back when it was only Roku boxes, I don't recall any ads at all on the home screen. Then when I got a TV with Roku built in, I recall it also being zero ads. That was like 10 years for the Roku TV where it still had no ads on the homescreen of the RokuOS. Then they added that big right banner ad. It was that for a number of years and then they added a row at the top advertising some streaming apps. Then they started this beta program for the new layout and they jacked up the size of the content advertisement space and pushing your stuff further down where your cursor focus defaults at when starting the TV/Roku. The expanding presense of advertisement icons have been pretty rapid.
Roku used to be have no advertisements. Then they started trying to be a digital storefront for movies/tv and that was just a button on the side list menu. Then they started adding advertisements more and more
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I don't have a Roku. I own a non-smart TV connected to a mini PC. But for folks that don't want to go through that setup, wouldn't using an adblock DNS block it?
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People probably wouldn't like it to have only one product without a single ad. They probably had bug reports about it "my roku doesn't display ads on my smart TV, does that mean that it's broken?".
I ordered the original one, before it was ad subsidized, and they pushed an "updating" adding them to the ad-free device I paid many times the current price for.
After that I considered them a total loss.
I know its possible to jail break a roku, but is there a follow up to remove ads after doing so?
Really sick of it. Though I need to get a pi-hole set up anyways
Are they ads for thing to pirate....?
I like my Chromecast setup. I remapped the Netflix button to Plex, so I push that button on the remote and the TV turns on and goes straight to plex. The Google TV UI is “meh” at best, and also full of ads, so I avoid it.
Roku just keeps getting worse and worse. It is highly inadvisable to connect a smart TV to the internet, a separate streaming box is the way to go. If Apple TV/Chromecast/whatever completely goes to shit, one can simply get something else.
I just got used Apple TVs and replaced all the Rokus
It was directly because of the ads.
You can load a different launcher onto a googleTV to get rid of the ads
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